Russell Wilson praying for Josh Gordon to turn around his life—then rejoin Seahawks
The Seahawks’ most important player wants suspended Josh Gordon back on the team, too.
A day after Seahawks receivers and linebacker K.J. Wright told The News Tribune how much they revered Gordon and hoped the former All-Pro wide receiver can conquer his drug issues, Russell Wilson said he is praying Gordon can turn his life around and, secondarily, play again for the Seahawks.
“I got pretty close with Josh. You are going to miss him, obviously, as a player, but more importantly as a friend and a guy I bonded with pretty quickly,” Wilson said Thursday.
Monday, the NFL gave Gordon his eighth suspension for drugs in his seven years in the league. The NFL indefinitely suspended Gordon for violations of its substance-of-abuse and performance-enhancing drug policies.
“We’ve been staying in touch and all that,” Wilson said.
“I just pray for him. I really believe that prayer works. I really believe that, just, relationships and friendships work, and supporting what we all go through. We all have stuff. We all have things that we go through.
“I’m just praying for him and rooting for him. He’ll overcome. I think he will overcome. I really believe that.
“Hopefully, he will get another chance to play, because he was fun to play with.”
THE POSSIBLE PATH BACK
The Gordon contract inherited by Seattle when 27 other teams passed on him and the Seahawks claimed him off waivers Nov. 1 was only through this season.
It will first take him complying with the NFL’s treatment and rehabilitation protocol—including going to all his appointments with counselors and submitting to tests—for the league to even consider reinstating him.
It’s a program Gordon knows too well. He was detailing it and the league’s support system for him to coach Pete Carroll upon his arrival with the Seahawks.
The league and commissioner Roger Goodell have reinstated him so many times before. Will they do it again?
If they do—a huge if after eight suspensions—it would take the Seahawks offering Gordon a contract for 2020 for him to ever play for Seattle again. He turns 29 in April. He had seven catches on 11 targets for 139 yards in five games for the Seahawks before his second suspension in 12 months. He hasn’t played a full season since his rookie one in the league. That was 2012.
Wilson was asked what leads him to believe Gordon may get reinstated by the league and perhaps play with the Seahawks again.
“I just believe that. For me, I have no other choice than to believe that he is going to overcome. Why would you think the other way?” Wilson said.
“I think that, you know, for me and just my faith and all that, I firmly believe that prayer works, like I said. I’m praying for him. I’m rooting that he can overcome.”
Not only does Wilson want Gordon to play with the Seahawks again, he thinks Seattle and the Seahawks’ bonded locker room are the places to best help Gordon.
“I think this environment has been great for him, to be honest with you,” Wilson said. “He really, really fit in, in terms of just the everyday part of the process. Since day one he was studying and working and highlighting and doing all the extra work. He had the biggest smile on his face.
“I talked a little bit to him about that, too. He was just like, ‘Man, this is the place I want to be. This is the place that has helped changed my life a little bit, and getting better.’”
MORE SEAHAWKS SUPPORTING GORDON
Wilson is the second team leader to say he wants Gordon back with the Seahawks.
Wright, the longest-tenured Seahawk by one year over Wilson and linebacker Bobby Wagner, said Wednesday the team would welcome him back in the locker room if the NFL eventually reinstates him again.
“I think that in a situation like this you just want to take care of you first, and get it figured out,” Wright said. “Because it’s taken over. You just want to get it figured out so you can just be a better person.”
And Wilson is at least the second Seahawks player to contact Gordon individually since he got suspended Monday. So individual players are trying to keep that support system for him in place from afar.
David Moore reached out to Gordon soon after Monday’s news broke of the suspension.
“I texted him,” Moore, 24, told The News Tribune Wednesday. “Texted him and let him know everything. Just telling him that we are going to keep praying for him—and that if he needed anything, he’s still our brother.”
“He’s a WOOTS for life.”
“WOOTS” has been the rallying cry for Seahawks wide receivers dating from now-retired Doug Baldwin to Sidney Rice when he played for Seattle from 2011-13. It stands for “wide outs on the scene,” always being ready to produce for the team and be there for each other.
“Josh,” Moore said, quietly, “that’s my brother.”
To Wilson, Wright, Moore, rookie receiver John Ursua, second-year wide out Malik Turner and more, Gordon’s not the supposed miscreant who has been suspended now seven times by the NFL and once, in 2014, by the Cleveland Browns.
Gordon still hasn’t played a full season since 2012. That was his rookie one with Cleveland. The next year was his All-Pro one with the Browns. He had 87 catches for a league-leading 1,696 yards with nine touchdowns that year. It began with the NFL suspending Gordon for the first time, for the first two games for using PEDs. He played in only five games in 2014 because of his suspension for substance abuse. He missed the entire 2015 and 2016 seasons for another violation of the NFL substance-abuse policy.
And so it’s gone for the father of two 4-year-old children who live with their mothers in Ohio. His troubles with substance abuse began with Xanax, codeine and marijuana—when he was in seventh grade.
Yet players on the Browns, the Patriots and now Seahawks loved and love him. That’s just part of the complexity in Gordon’s situation.
“Man, he was, honestly, just one of the coolest guys I’ve met,” Ursua told me Wednesday. “I had a whole perception of him when he first got here because all I hear is the things that people write about or say about him. So I had no idea what he was going to be like.
“But having him as my locker neighbor, it was just amazing seeing him prepare, seeing him reach out to the coaches and staying in the meeting room extra just so he could learn the playbook, and then, just a friendship guy, man. He was just such a good guy to have in this locker room.
“It was extremely tough and sad for me to see that happen to him.”
It’s the life tragedy of his addiction. A man seemingly all teammates want to help can’t help himself.
“All those things, you know, you hope that he can come back to us and play with us,” Wilson said.
“But more importantly, it’s about him. It’s about his soul. It’s about life.
“It’s about all those things that we all have to go through and overcome.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 2:52 PM.
